Lifelog

FIXES TO LIFELOG

- Fixed time hop bug due to timezones and those who wrote multiple posts today last year.

- Added loading-in-progress popup for JSON download on /account page, as those with years of posts might need to wait for some time.

🚀 NEW LIFELOG FEATURES

⬇️ Download all your posts - either on Google Sheet (which you can then save as CSV or Excel), or download as JSON. Side-note though: If you got years of posts, it'll take quite a long while!

⌛️ Time hop is here. See what you wrote last year today. I've always felt we got so much writings in archive, and occasionally pulling these up might be helpful to reminiscence, or to review progress.

🛠 Also fixed bug on registration page that's been bugging me for the longest time!

Let's go with [play-driven development](https://golifelog.com/posts/play-based-development-1692499812341). What should I play with?

I looked through all my open browser tabs to see what I've opened and wanted to keep opened for reference again. Looked through my notes in Telegram, and saved bookmarks on social media. Just creating of quick list of fun and interesting things I'm curious about right now:

- Play with [grammY](https://grammy.dev/), a JS framework for Telegram bots
- Building fun features for Lifelog, like bots, lifespan view,
- Use Pushmore.io Telegram bot for notifications
- Use Logsnag to show iOS notifications
- Use [Postmark](https://postmarkapp.com/) and [Crontap](https://crontap.com)/[Cron-job](https://cron-job.org/) to create a email drip course?
- Create ghetto versions of analytics, A/B testing plugins
- Create simple tools for people on Twitter. Start simple, like just a form to generate something. An image, a 5s video, something, anything.
- Simple database to store small pieces of standalone data, like using Google Sheets to store text for an announcement banner I made. Like instead of an entire table of a db, I just need 1 row out of the whole table where I can CRUD. Or not even a row, but a key/value pair, or just a snippet of JSON.
- Websites or writings that would last 'forever' on the internet, even past my lifetime.

Some patterns I'm observing about my curiosities:

- No AI. Still feels out of my league to try.
- Lots of stuff about Telegram I realised. I truly love that app.
- Tiny tools - easier to try and use, get set up.
- Ghetto tools - goes with my rookie dev status

*What are you curious about?*

[A masterclass hidden in a long reply here by @levelsio](https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1688910420273197056?s=20), on how he got started with the whole AI game:

- started 11 months ago
- played with Stable Diffusion, realised it was good for generating beautiful architecture homes
- made thishousedoesnotexist.org, realised people used it for interior a lot
- pivoted to interiorai.com, it went viral and made $50k MRR
- realised can add pics of himself and made avatarai.me, made $100k
- realised avatars are a fad, pivoted to photo shoots and made photoai.com

Love this approach. There’s no masterplan, no vision (at least at the start). Every idea gave more ideas and led to the next breakthrough one. Everything is emergent, and all you need to do is to take the next step.

Start with curiosity.
Build one thing.
One thing leads to building another thing.
And another…
Profit!

And my favourite part of this is... it all started from curiosity, from just playing with something – a new technology, a new tool, or something shiny.

Get curious
Play, have fun
Ship something
Sense opportunity
Respond, pivot

Probably one of my top favourite way to start any product, through play!

It's perfect timing of a message, as I'm trying to rest and play more first right now after my [consulting season](https://golifelog.com/posts/how-the-body-teaches-rest-1692238180728).

Play, and maybe something good will come out of it. If not, I still won because of the mental break I got.

Approach
- click a link of existing Google Sheet document (with embedded script in Apps Script) to make a force copy it to user's Google Drive
- copy and paste a import JSON formula into cell of Sheet
- all posts load into Sheet

Yesterday I wrote about my [1700 consecutive days streak](https://golifelog.com/posts/makerlog-1700-1692319643083) of shipping on Makerlog.

I wish I can you how crazily successful I am because I shipped everyday for over 4 years.

But I'm not.

Faaar from it, in fact.

I'm just at $1k monthly revenue. That's like rookie numbers. I'm at the indie hacker baby stage only. I'm still struggling to grow my products. I've not hit any product with growth potential to go to say, $10k per month. Hell, I'm even struggling to even [launch new ones right now](https://golifelog.com/posts/how-the-body-teaches-rest-1692238180728).

That streak number means nothing in the larger scheme of things. At least for me. My goals, my dreams. It's really a throughput metric, not the output or outcome. Not the endgame.

The final endgame, the real number that ultimately matters is money in the bank, the blank days in your calendar.

It's how many laughs I've seen my kid laughed.
It's how many smiles I've seen my wife smiled.
It's how many trips I went on with my family.
It's how many night we slept soundly knowing we're well-provided for.
It's the assurance my parents feel in their retirement years.

Those are the real numbers.

Just hit 1700 day streak on Makerlog.

This might be the last time I talk about my Makerlog streak because by 31 Oct it will be gone - the new Makerlog will no longer have streaks.

So... some parting thoughts:

- It's not as crazy or unhealthy as you think. It's not about working like crazy 24/7, weekdays and weekends. It's just 1 task a day. The task can be small. But it has to be a real task. For me, the one task that ensured I kept up this long was my daily writing here on Lifelog, about indie hacking, products, experiments, ideas, or just life. I write, then log it over at Makerlog. As long as I write, my streak will keep going.

- In a way, 1700 could have been my writing streak too because I started on Makerlog on the same day I started daily writing on the now-defunct 200wordsaday. That is if I didn't intentionally break the writing streak to build Lifelog (after 200WAD closed down). Pretty nostalgic to think about those days when I started logging and writing... I was on a digital nomad trip in Ubud, Bali. First time nomading, and in my early days of indie hacking. I remember working from cafes every day, and launching my Wordpress-based products there (that's the only tech stack I knew back then). 1700 days is over 4 years, which sounds about right how long I've been shipping.

- Even though I 'celebrate' the streak, it's hardly the main motivation anymore. In the initial days, yes. Not wanting to break the streak does help a bit in maintaining the habit. But I remember, after about 2 years, that number doesn't matter no more. The habit's ingrained, the system runs itself, and I'm doing it because of a deeper why, because I enjoy it (I mean, daily writing). It's no longer about the streak. At some points I remember the Makerlog logging API going down, and I wondered if the streak will break. After a few minutes, I realised I don't really care that much. But that is not to say that the streak is a useless mechanism. It's super useful in the early days of habit formation, at least for me. But once instrinsic motivation takes over, it becomes just a nice-to-have external artefact to look at.

- Enthusiasm is easy, endurance is hard. Over the 1700 days, I seen so many promising indie makers come and go on Makerlog. Some burn out and drop out, others move on to fulltime jobs, some just disappear without a trace. All burst into the scene with fireworks, and a fire in their eyes and belly. What separates enthusiasm from the endurance? I wish I had some pithy wisdom bomb to share. I wish I knew. But one thing's for sure, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Here's to the 1700. And to the old Makerlog being witness to my indie hacker baby days.

🍻🍻

For the past two weeks since I got off my consulting train, I've been pushing to launch a new product. I wanted to launch something new in a week. But the more I tried, the less motivated I am. The more I worked, the lazier my body became. The more I berated myself, the foggier my mind got. It's like the whole body was fighting me.

Then I chanced across a post on social media and it all came together:

> And then her body whispered... "I'm not fighting AGAINST you, I'm fighting FOR you. Through pain and tension I communicate the boundaries you never learned to set. Through fatigue and exhaustion, I give you the rest that you were never allowed to take. Through the headaches and brain fog I let you know that you are doing too much. You see, I've always been on your side, I'm just waiting for you to be on mine." – Lexy Florentina via [@somaticexperiencingint](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv55gFXsneI/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==)

I was still moving on the momentum of the past few hectic months that I couldn't stop. But my body needed to us to stop and rest. The mind needed us to lighten up and play.

They whsipered but I didn't hear. So they all conspired to teach me how, in their own unique way. By shutting things down one by one.

Until I finally got the memo.

*Ok body, mind, I got it.*

No more projects and projecting.
No more deadlines.
No more new goals.

Just rest.
And play.
Go to zero.

Do whatever it takes until they come back and whisper, "We're ready."

Every day I switch between 2-3—sometimes 4—of my projects. A typical day might be:

- Answer support emails for Carrd plugins
- Build a quick plugin if someone asks a question that needs a unique answer
- Write daily for Lifelog
- Post on LinkedIn for Outsprint
- Build in public on Twitter for Lifelog or Plugins
- Prepare slide deck or content for consulting with Outsprint client

For people who like to focus on one thing, this is a nightmare. For doctors, they'll suggest I go on medication probably. If I'm employed, my boss might frown upon my way of working.

***But I love it.***

To me doing one thing for the whole day it's no different from doing multiple things. I can just do one thing for the whole day if work requires. My consulting projects are often like that. To be honest, I have no deep personal preference. But context switching is fun for me. Switching helps bring fresh energy. So when my schedule is free, I tend to find myself doing multi-tasking more.

Society in general seem to hate this though. It's like how the world favours extroverts. You only read articles titled "Introvert? Here's how to be more social and outspoken." I'd love to one day see an article that says "Extrovert? Here's now to be more reflective and quiet."

Same energy when it comes to multi-tasking, context switching, and generalists. Society explicitly favours specialists and focus.

I like to say, people like me are actually specialists too. Specialists at context switching and multi-tasking. Or master generalists.

I think the neurological diversity has a purpose and benefit for us as a species. But in our factory stamp approach to work and productivity, we've forgotten that diversity is more resilient.

Thankfully, being an indie hacker means I don't have to heed any of that, and just do whatever works for me.

In a way, I didn't find indie hacking. Maybe indie hacking found me instead... because of those divergent traits.

IG influencer [@pichit89](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv3lzjfBzd_/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) schooling us how shipping should be done on a Sunday:

[](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv3lzjfBzd_/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)

So peaceful. So calming. So joyful. Now I want that so much. In fact, not just for Sundays but any day. This should be the default vibes for indie hacking on a daily basis.

Calm shipping.

I often find this hard to do, being type-A personality, compulsive and impatient workaholic and all. But it always enthralls whenever I see a version of this in any activity – meditation, mindful living, camping, ASMR videos.

Life's too short to rush through just to get to the goal.

The means is just as important as the ends.
The journey just as enjoyable as the destination.

The real endgame should be to go as fast as I mindfully can, while being fully present and calm to all the things I'm doing and the environment I'm doing it in.

I want to ship calmly.
I want to run a calm business.
I want to be a calm indie hacker.

Is #calmshipping a thing?

If not, it definitely should.

⭐️🛠 NEW FEATURES & FIXES ON LIFELOG

📸 You can now upload images directly on the rich text editor!

🗞 Added markdown rendering to announcement banner on home page. Now we can show links on the banner.

- Remove bug causing directly uploaded images to expire after 10min
- Fixed bug when default markdown for image insertion is showing null instead of placeholder url
- Fixed bug where hover on the light bulb tag isn't refreshing the writing prompt
- Other minor style and bug fixes for better UX, e.g welcome modal

Found a workaround: will add inline styles directly on my Google Sheet which update directly on announcement banner , e.g. to underline use

I always loved bringing sports analogies and lessons into productivity and indie hacking. This tweet by [@fitfounder](https://x.com/fitfounder/status/1690364931252830208) is a good one:

**We perform our best at 85% intensity.**

The long tweet was so good (with ~7M impressions) that I must reproduce in entirety here:

> When an athlete is told to run at 85% they run faster than if they're told to run at 100%. It's called the 85% rule and here's why it works:
>
> Carl Lewis was a 9 time Olympic gold medalist who was known as a master finisher but a slow starter. He began races 2nd to last but usually ended up finishing first. It became known that he's wasn't performing at full throttle. He was going at 85% the whole time.
>
> Why 85%? When you have your best performances it's never when you're trying your hardest. Instead the task usually feels easy & effortless. Going at 85% is a mindset about relaxation & performing at a high level while being in flow. It's about pacing, form & finishing. At 85% you're not striving or straining by operating at the very limit of your ability. You have room to think, focus & adapt. Applying the 85% rule helps you balance intensity while being focused & relaxed. Here's a few example of how to do it:
>
> At work:
> Instead of going full throttle, take your time, release the pressure & focus. Put an emphasis on optimizing your systems & adopt a mentality of expending 85% of your mental energy towards a task. Your perception of energy is the biggest component to your productivity.
>
> In your diet:
> Instead of trying to be perfect aim to get 85% of your food choices right. This takes the pressure off of you and gets you away from an "all or nothing" mindset. You want to be adaptable to any situation and hitting 85% is enough to get your body in shape.
>
> In your workouts:
> Instead of going to failure for every exercise aim for 85% intensity so you can focus on good form & keep your body injury free. We have a rule to keep 1-2 reps in the tank when lifting and this fits perfectly into it.
>
> Keys to the 85% rule:
> 1) Relax
> 2) Focus on form
> 3) Set your mind to 85% intensity
> 4) Work just below your maximum threshold
> 5) Stop when you feel close to 100% of your mental/physical capacity
>
> Instead of putting the pressure by trying to go 100 aim for 85% instead. Doing so might help you unlock new levels of performance.

Mindblown 🤯 We perform better at 85% intensity than 100%.

So much for the mainstream narrative of trying your “best”, going at 110%. Another example of how popular ideas break down when you probe deeper.

So I wonder: What does operating at 85% look like as an indie hacker?

- **Not working 24/7.** Take your breaks and weekends seriously. I work on weekend early mornings but it's more on a hobby side project so it's pretty fun and relaxing.
- **Not working long hours** within a day. No late nights or all-nighters. Instead of 12h full-on days, try 8h with scheduled breaks every hour, or 6.5h of full-on. I find it's too straining if I sit in my chair without getting up for 2h, so getting up and moving about every 1h or so is a good guage of going at 85%.
- **Finish well.** If I'm finishing the day feeling drained, back aching, eyes dry, and throbbing headache, then I've went too hard. The ideal finishing state is feeling fine, balanced or even half-relaxed, even if there's some fatigue.
- **End nice.** I always like to end the day with a bit of recap on what I did, to kinda reflect and review, and have a tiny moment of celebration for good, honest work done for the day. Then spend a few minutes looking ahead to the next day on what tasks to work on.
- **85% posture.** While working, a stance leaning back in relaxed but mindful focus seems to work better than a posture sitting on the edge of my seat, pupils dilated, sweating, frowning, hunkering down. I learned this from long distance running too – good form lets you last longer, and is less straining.
- **Minimal meetings or calls.** Maybe 1 a week for me. If I schedule 3-4 face-to-face sessions in a week, I get drained.
- **Context switching** between projects and tasks. I try to stick to max 2 projects or problems per day, context switching 3-4 times a day (based on how my day is structured between family, lunch etc).

*What other hacks and tricks do you have to work or perform at 85% capacity?*